Saturday night my family and a bunch of friends went to the Monster Truck Jam at the Citrus Bowl. It’s become a much-anticipated annual event. The first year my son, Luke, and I went alone. The second year Luke and I took four friends. Now it’s become four or five adults with fifteen, six- to ten-year-olds. We go early, cook hot dogs, toss a football, go through the pits, and maybe get a ride in a monster truck.
I’ll admit the Monster Jam is not the opera; it tends to bring out a different side of its fans. In fact, each of the last two years fights broke out within a few feet of our seats. They were both minor incidents that were no doubt exacerbated by too much beer and Grave Digger fans sitting to close to Maximum Destruction fans. I viewed the fights as a minor annoyance, but for a dozen nine-year-old boys, it was very memorable.
Last week Luke spent a big part of two days working on a special project in preparation for the Jam. I wasn’t aware of the project until I saw him and my six-year-old daughter, Taylor, playing with what I thought was a stick. Taylor would put the stick in her back pocket, act nonchalant, then quickly pull it out and take a defensive position like she was a gang member in a knife fight. While she was practicing her stance, Luke was advising her about how to hold the stick and what to do with it. Upon interrogation of the kids, I found that the stick had been specially chosen by Luke, cut to a specific size that would easily fit in Taylor’s pocket, and sharpened to a very intimidating point. You see, if a fight were to break out, Luke didn’t want Taylor to be defenseless.
After a teaching moment, I wasn’t sure whether to be scared, entertained, proud or angry. I leaned toward proud and entertained. But it made me reflect on the words of a friend, Danny Howell. He told me we’re all born in a war zone. He told me that the fight predated our arrival here on planet Earth and is bound to affect every one of us. He also told me that in war there is collateral damage; in other words, bad things happen. The Haitians know it, widows and widowers know it, parents sitting in NICU lobbies know it, my kids even know it. We try to prepare for it, we try to avoid it, and we try to convince ourselves that we’re exempt from it, but bad things happen.
I think Danny’s right - we’re all battlefield babies. The thing that I think is really cool is that Taylor found a defender on the battlefield. Luke cared for Taylor enough to make sure she was protected. His hand-carved weapons and diligent training won’t be enough to protect Taylor from all the evils of the war, but I wonder if there is a model here. Every one of us either has been or will be hurt in this great conflict. When the pain becomes personal, or we witness hideous wrongs committed against the innocents in our world, or the earth itself seems to harbor malevolence like it did in Haiti, no explanation will be sufficient to answer the question: Why?
But wouldn’t it be great to know that there is someone out there searching for us on the battlefield, in the rubble. Someone who will help us, prepare us, arm us, throw himself on a grenade for us. Someone who will never leave us, someone who will save us from this inescapable war… There is. That’s the gospel and his name is Christ.
John Monday
Nicely said!
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